


Of Cats and Cucumbers

by GestaltHammer



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Cheese, Fluff, Friendship Is The Best Ship, Gen, Hybrid AU, Hybrids, Pranks, Shenanigans, Strong Language, bird!gavin, cat!Michael, old cucumber meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 00:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13019733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GestaltHammer/pseuds/GestaltHammer
Summary: Gavin never really understood that just because Michael shares a little more DNA with cats than the average person, it doesn’t mean that he is a cat. Maybe he occasionally bats at feathers drifting through the air when Gavin moults and likes naps in the sun, but that doesn’t mean he likes the large empty box Gavin gave him for Christmas, and it certainly doesn't mean he’safraid of cucumbers of all things.I wrote this two years ago during a manic episode when the cat and cucumber thing was . . . a thing. I reworked it a few days ago.





	Of Cats and Cucumbers

**Author's Note:**

> Is it just me or is Geoff more of a hyena than a ram? I get it. His name. But the laughing. Blue some unpredictable wild cat or brown bear and Jack a capybara?

The best thing about Austin, in Michael's opinion, is that, in the fall - when New Jersey is turning cold, stormy, and wet, the sun going into hiding behind the clouds for days at a time - it is still mostly sunny here. When he was younger, come September or October, he would be forced by the cold, wind, and rain to retreat indoors and curl up by the space heater, and that would be his routine until late spring rolled around. Here, however, it's almost November now, and he has found himself stretched out on the roof of the offices, napping in the warm rays of the autumnal sun.  
It’s lunchtime, which means an hour (or two, sometimes three, if he can get away with it) to himself in perfect tranquillity. A lot of his life is dedicated to screaming – at a screen, at co-workers, at inanimate objects, concepts, ideas, particles of dust hanging in the air that the sun illuminates suspiciously. It's his job, and he's good at it; people think it's funny, but it can be a little taxing. Lunch is his time to unwind, decompress, just him, the sun, the gentle breeze, and . . . He feels his ears flatten involuntarily against his head as a familiar and unwelcome, though not altogether unpleasant, smell wafts across his nose on the wind.  
  
_Gavin_.  
  
He's not immediately nearby, but he is in the vicinity. Michael would assume the bird is going to go get trashed with Geoff, but there's no sign of Geoff in the air, except the faint scent of the hyena that clings to Gavin. Michael listens closely, ears twitching, as the bird wanders a few yards into the parking lot. Going for a walk, perhaps. Gavin does that sometimes, wanders out in search of wilderness, of which there isn't much around here. He usually settles for parks. But then his footsteps stop. Michael's ears perk up to listen for him. The bird's intentionally moving quietly, sneaky little shit. He knows this is Michael’s quiet time, that the cat loves him but needs space. He respects that. He wouldn't dare –  
  
A loud rustle of feathers and burst of wind, and suddenly Michael hears Gavin clambering clumsily onto the roof. Michael peels an eye open to see Gavin frantically beating his wings as he teeters on the building’s ledge before over balancing forward and landing safely on his hands and knees.  
  
Most birds are graceful. Griffon, for instance, is long and lithe. She's one with her wings and makes flying look as easy as walking. Gavin on the other hand - it's some cruel cosmic joke that has stuck wings on the back of this shithead. Maybe it's the fact that he's a breed of hybrid that rarely flies that has him acting like both of his wings are some sort of alien appendages controlled by an independent entity. Michael can't count the number of times Gavin’s wings have knocked things off of adjacent desks, nearby shelves, counters, etc., when the bird has been excited or startled, and Gavin always apologises and insists he can't always control them, much like Michael can't always control his tail, except Michael's tail doesn't cause anywhere near the same level of destruction. Which is the cause and which is the effect is up for debate, but Gavin’s disobedient wings and reluctance to fly are definitely not unrelated. For the most part, Gavin is earthbound, using his wings more for extending jumps, the stress relief he seems to gain from his compulsive preening, or, as in this instance, helping (and largely failing) to maintain balance.  
  
Michael lets his eye slide closed before Gavin can notice he's awake, hoping the bird will fuck off if he sees Michael is in the middle of his afternoon nap. It's a long shot. Gavin is more fascinated by predators than any prey has a right to be. He isn't going to respect (fear) a cat when he shares a bed with a coyote every night.  
  
As Michael lies there, with his eyes closed, he realises Gavin isn't leaving; he isn't so much as moving. Because of course he isn't. Because he's a bird, and birds are stupid – not in a normal way – not like they sometimes confuse their left and right or can't add small numbers together without counting it out on their fingers (though both of those are true of Gavin). No, they’re stupid like the guards from _Metal Gear Solid_ are stupid. They're scattered and forgetful, sometimes downright oblivious, and live under the delusion that every man, animal, and hybrid sees the world and thinks about it exactly as they do. Which is why Gavin is now standing stock still, assuming Michael will forget about the commotion and the bird’s presence if he just stays quiet for long enough.  
  
Michael sighs. He considers sitting up and confronting Gavin, but the bird will do that stupid thing guilty or frightened prey do – freeze up, continue to pretend Michael doesn't know he's there. Since Michael wants to be alone, that really doesn't sort the issue. Such are many of the problems associated with Gavin – such is the problem that _is_ Gavin – persistent and irresolvable. So Michael decides to let the bird do as he will. And at length, he hears movement. Slowly, the bird approaches until he's standing off to Michael’s side, a little less than a yard away. Then the giggling starts. It's strained and muffled. Gavin is clearly trying _not_ to do it and failing miserably. Michael arches an eyebrow. If Gavin notices, he doesn't react to it. Then he quiets for a bit, and there's nothing to hear except the wind rustling through feathers. Until . . .  
  
_Thunk_. Giggle. Silence.  
  
Michael furrows his brow, but refuses to give Gavin the satisfaction of looking to see what the bird dropped on the roof.  
  
More giggles.  
  
Michael is not - _absolutely not_ \- opening his eyes until the bird leaves. Gavin can stand there as long as he wants, deluding himself into believing that whatever this is – _a prank_ , Michael supposes – is successful, that Michael is completely unaware. He can stand there forever, as far as Michael’s concerned.  
  
But Gavin doesn't have the patience to wait for the payoff to occur organically. It's why he's always on the receiving end of pranks and only the prankster if he's teamed up with someone who can stop him from ruining it with his over-the-top enthusiasm for things he's bad at.  
  
Sure enough, not two minutes later, Gavin squeaks, ‘Michael!’ between barely contained giggles.  
  
‘Go away,’ Michael snarls.  
  
‘Michael. Michael, look.’  
  
‘Fuck off, Gavin.’  
  
‘But Michael, you didn't look.’  
  
No. And he won’t.  
  
‘Won't you, please?’  
  
Not a chance.  
  
‘Look, Michael! Look!’  
  
For all his bluster, Michael has never been great at saying no to Gavin. He likes to build himself up like such a hardass in his own head, but he usually ends up doing what Gavin asks. It's a problem. Michael's aware. And this is no exception. He lets go of a long suffering sigh, and he looks.  
  
His heart leaps for a second, just because _it's green_. Honestly it isn't too far off from what Michael expected – a dildo. A dildo shouldn't be green, though, excepting some sort of Incredible Hulk fetish.  
  
Michael moves his eyes up to Gavin's beaming face and blinks slowly. ‘What? Did you steal Jeremy's lunch?’  
  
‘It's a cucumber!’ declares Gavin eagerly.  
  
Michael's gaze darts down to the fruit then back up to the bird. ‘And?’  
  
‘Cats’re scared of ‘em, aren't they?’  
  
Michael's eyes narrow. ‘Says who?’  
  
‘The Internet.’  
  
‘Oh. _The Internet_.’  
  
Gavin is still grinning and tittering gleefully.  
  
‘Hate to break it to you, Gavvy, but I'm not scared of that.’  
  
The bird's smile shrinks fractionally. ‘But you're a cat.’  
  
‘Cat _hybrid_ ,’ corrects Michael. ‘Just because you practically are a literal bird, doesn't mean every hybrid identifies so closely with their animal bits.’  
  
‘You’re having a kip in the sun,’ argues Gavin mildly.  
  
‘People like the sun, Gavvers!’ declares Michael. ‘And have ya ever heard of a siesta?’  
  
‘On the roof?’  
  
‘I -! Well, I’ll give ya that one,’ Michael says with a shrug. ‘But I don't hunt. I don't claw up sofas. I don't piss on things when I'm horny.’  
  
‘Thank Christ for that,’ Gavin mumbles, pulling on one of his wings and absently running his fingers through it.  
  
‘I know!’  
  
‘You do make that awful chattering noise at me sometimes.’  
  
‘Well, that's because it skeevs you out, Gavvy,’ insists Michael, struggling not to make said sound as he carefully watches Gavin continue to preen. He’ll die before he lets Gavin know that sometimes, _sometimes_ birds in particular do rip that sound out of his throat involuntarily.  
  
The bird doesn’t even look up when he replies, ‘You're horrible.’  
  
‘I don't rub up against people. I don’t bring people dead things as a gift. I don't hate dogs. I don't climb trees. I'm not afraid of water. I have no interest in cat nip. And I don't give a fuck about boxes.’  
  
‘Are you saying you didn't like your Christmas present?’  
  
‘The giant empty box your TV came in? No, Gavin, I didn't like that.’  
  
‘Aw.’  
  
‘And whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish here’, Michael gestures at the cucumber, lying on the roof between them, though Gavin is still more focused on his feathers. ‘If it's reliant on me being cat-like, it's gonna fail.’  
  
‘Uh-huh,’ Gavin mumbles, then finally releases his wing, flaps and stretches the pair before folding them up.  
  
Michael can't help but watch, low-key enraptured by the display. He doesn’t even notice the smug smirk on Gavin’s lips until the bird is lifting a clenched fist. And goddammit, Michael watches that too.  
  
‘What the fuck are you doing?’  
  
Gavin slaps the hand that he isn't holding above Michael's head over his mouth and giggles madly, his face going a little pink with the effort of suppressing it. Then he unfurls his fist and from between his fingers drifts two little down feathers. Michael's eyes go wide. His irrational cat brain is leaking.  
  
_How dare_ those feathers invade Michael's air space? Who the hell do they think they are? Michael's fingers twitch. Someone needs to cut those bitches down to size.  
  
Gavin’s giggles intensify, and yeah, Michael gets it. He's falling right into the stupid bird's trap. But damn. Right now his instincts are waging an epic coup d’état against his pride. And winning.  
  
‘You’re a fucking prick,’ Michael sneers then gives in and swipes at the feathers, grabbing one while the other escapes and lands at Gavin’s feet.  
  
‘You're a cat, Michael!’ Gavin scoops the fruit up off the roof and brandishes it at his friend. ‘Now, fear my cucumber!’  
  
‘If you don't get that thing away from me, I'm gonna shove it up your ass.’  
  
‘Better a cucumber than a thorny dick.’  
  
‘I don't want to hear about Meg’s strap on, Gav.’  
  
‘Cat penises, Michael!’  
  
Michael stretches and climbs to his feet. ‘You can think what you want, Gavvy. I'm not a cat. And this is a dumb prank. And you suck at pranks.’  
  
‘I do not,’ Gavin spits petulantly.  
  
‘You don't got the commitment, but keep telling yourself that,’ Michael replies with a shrug, then nimbly climbs down from the roof, leaving his bird friend to stew in his failure.

_____ _

_____ _

  


When Michael enters the office, Jeremy's at his desk, chin propped up on his hand like that contemplative naked guy statue (except smaller . . . and with more clothes . . . and part chinchilla), absently watching footage. Jeremy's the only other one in the office. Everyone else is still at lunch. Thanks to Gavin, Michael only got 20 minutes to himself. But there are worse people to hold company with than the chinchilla, who is usually subdued until the late afternoon, early evening hours. At this time, when the others aren't around, talking to Jeremy is the best alternative to being alone.  
  
Michael slinks into the chair at the adjacent desk and gives the mouse a jiggle to wake up his computer. The hard drive whirs gently, silent to most, but audible to Michael's ears (and likely Jeremy’s, if he weren’t wearing headphones). ‘Hey Jeremy,’ he mutters.  
  
Jeremy starts, white knuckles the armrests of his chair, and freezes, fixing Michael with wild eyes while his chest rapidly rises and falls. Then his eyes clear, and he laughs.  
  
‘You were sleeping with your eyes open again, weren't you?’ asks Michael with a sneer.  
  
Jeremy laughs sheepishly. ‘Maybe,’ he admits. ‘It’s lunch. No one cares.’  
  
‘Hey, no judgement. But it is creepy as fuck, man.’  
  
‘And that's judgement,’ Jeremy points out with a smirk.  
  
Michael shrugs and mutters that it's true, but doesn’t bother to clarify if he’s endorsing his original statement or Jeremy’s condemnation thereof. He turns to his twin monitors as the screens burst into life, a continuous rich green image of a cucumber flooding his desktops.  
  
‘Fucking Christ!’ he yelps, wheeling backward about half a foot in surprise.  
  
Jeremy looks repeatedly between Michael and the computer, laughing uproariously.  
  
‘You did that!?’ demands Michael.  
  
‘No,’ Jeremy manages between his laughter.  
  
Michael's ears flatten against his head. ‘ _Gavin_ ,’ he seethes. ‘He's got it in his head that cats are afraid of cucumbers, and that _I'm_ afraid of cucumbers.’  
  
‘You just freaked out over a picture of one,’ Jeremy wheezes.  
  
‘I was surprised, not scared. It's different.’  
  
Jeremy settles down. ‘Yeah, but that's like the crux of the whole thing. The cats in the videos aren't scared of _cucumbers_ ; they flip out because they weren't expecting it to be there.’  
  
Michael leers quietly. ‘ _Videos_?’  
  
‘Um, yeah.’ Jeremy gives the back of his neck a sheepish scratch. ‘There may be a few videos of people sneaking up behind their cats, laying down a cucumber, and the cat losing its shit. And I _may_ have shown them to Gavin.’  
  
Michael feels his face harden as he glares at the chinchilla. ‘You did this! You made him harass me with a cucumber!’  
  
‘He what?’ chuckles Jeremy.  
  
‘He threw a cucumber down on the roof and wouldn’t fuck off about it.’  
  
Jeremy briefly makes eye contact and laughs. ‘In my defence, they were _actual_ cats, not hybrids. I didn't think I was giving him any ideas. I just want to know where he found a cucumber so fast.’  
  
‘What? You mean you didn't give him that too?’  
  
‘Like I just had a whole cucumber lying around? Yep, yes, that's exactly what happened. Cats are so fucking dumb.’  
  
‘You can't tell Gavin about the desktop thing!’ Michael warns.  
  
‘Your reaction? Yeah. Wouldn't. Dream of it. But you might not want to look at your screensaver right now.’  
  
Michael carefully slides his eyes over to his monitors. He jumps a little. It's a slideshow of images of cucumbers – some innocent, some semi-pornographic (at least one outright pornographic), some just plain odd. He shudders a little then fixes Jeremy with a glare. ‘I am going to murder him someday.’  
  
‘And no one will be surprised. But, uh, don't tell him you flinched when the screensaver came on?’  
  
‘Obviously.’ Michael wakes up his computer again and goes about trying to undo Gavin's meddling. ‘Fucking ridiculous. He'll forget about it soon enough.’ An error message pops up on Michael's screen, informing him that he doesn’t have the clearance to edit basic settings and asking for an administrator's password. ‘You've gotta be . . . Ugh!’ growls Michael. He rips open a desk drawer in search of the list of administrator passwords he keeps nearby. ‘MOTHERFUCKER!’ Michael screams when he finds a cucumber staring back at him. This time he actually falls out of his chair like some stupid cartoon character.  
  
Jeremy immediately cracks up again. ‘Oh my god! He's right! You're fucking terrified!’ he cackles.  
  
Ryan, with his perfect timing, chooses now to enter. He briefly greets Jeremy before casting his gaze down at Michael, still crumpled on the ground. ‘You all right down there, Michael?’  
  
‘Chairs are uncomfortable when you have a long tail,’ bullshits Michael, climbing to his feet.  
  
‘Uh huh,’ replies Ryan, not even trying to disguise his scepticism as something more palatable.  
  
‘Hey, completely unrelated to me being on the ground, you know the admin passwords off the top of your head?’ he asks, slyly leaning against his desk and pushing the drawer shut with his hip.  
  
Ryan glances at the monitors. ‘Nice background.’  
  
‘I'm going vegetarian.’  
  
‘Sure. You know Meg already told me what Gavin's up to, right?’  
  
‘That piece of shit.’  
  
Without another word, Ryan turns his focus to Michael's infirmed computer and begins manipulating things in a way that Michael doesn’t understand, but it sure is visually appealing, the way that cursor darts around the screen. _Cat brain, stop_!  
  
‘It doesn't really bother me,’ Michael insists in a distant voice. He's too mesmerised to react to Jeremy's sniggering.  
  
‘Good because Gavin changed the passwords, and I don't think we can do anything about this without them.’  
  
That snaps Michael out of it abruptly, like he's been slapped. ‘What!? Did you even try anything!?’  
  
‘I tried a lot of things.’  
  
‘So Gavin outsmarted you is what you're saying? Hey, Ryan, if I flip a coin three times -’  
  
‘Don't!’ booms Ryan. ‘Never again.’  
  
‘Fix my computer!’  
  
‘When's the last time you backed up your hard drive?’  
  
‘It's been a few years.’  
  
Ryan grimaces. ‘Have you, by any chance, saved to shared folders lately?’  
  
‘Ummm,’ is all Michael can muster behind a guilty grin.  
  
‘Then your best option is to ask Gavin what he changed the password to.’  
  
‘Never!’  
  
‘You could try guessing it,’ Jeremy suggests. ‘He's not that unpredictable. It's probably “cucumber,” or, like, “Gumby dick.”’  
  
Ryan doesn’t seem convinced, but he types in both of Jeremy's suggestions anyway, receiving error messages in response both times. He also tries _cuke_ and _cuc_ , reasoning that sometimes Gavin is too lazy for full words. The three men occupy the next fifteen minutes racking their brains for every possible iteration of the word “cucumber” - _mingy dildo. tube salad. cock fruit. juice cleanse shit. Cucumis sativus. warty cylindrical. 01000011 01110101 01100011 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010_ , and on and on – to no avail. They scatter when Gavin, Geoff, and Jack arrive, and Michael quickly closes the text to binary translator that is open in his browser.  
  
Gavin sits down quietly, then slowly turns to look at Michael, and he's _absolutely beaming_. Michael doesn't think he's ever seen the bird this happy. Even his mood when Meg was on her exhibitionist kick and kept dragging him into closets around the office for quickies didn't compare. ‘Hi Michael,’ he warbles.  
  
Michael wonders if Gavin's neck has always looked so perfect for snapping. ‘Go fuck yourself,’ he wants to say. But that would make Gavin think he had won. So instead Michael smiles and coos, ‘Hello Gavvy-Wavvy.’  
  
The bird's face drops instantly. Jeremy and Ryan laugh.  
  
‘Did yo-’  
  
‘Oh, yeah. I saw it.’  
  
‘But did -’  
  
‘The screensaver? Yep, that too.’  
  
‘Have you -’  
  
‘Have I tried to change it? No. Because like I said, it doesn't bother me. Do what you want, Gav. I'm unshakeable.’  
  
‘When it comes to cucumbers,’ adds Jeremy.  
  
‘When it comes to cucumbers,’ agrees Michael.  
  
Jack looks confused then shakes his head. ‘I don't know if I want to know what's going on here.’  
  
They don’t bother explaining it, and the despondent look on Gavin's face has Michael leaving the office that day feeling victorious. It's the last time he feels that way for a while because after that, his life takes a turn for the greener.

___  
_ _ _

It starts the next morning, and it doesn’t start small. Michael has a routine. Gavin knows Michael has a routine. Gavin knows that the moment Michael and Lindsay’s alarm goes off, Michael rolls out of bed – literally, out of bed, onto the floor because if he lies still for too long in the mornings, he'll fall asleep again after Lindsay hits snooze (as cat hybrids they are particularly susceptible to dysania) – prowls over to the window and rips open the curtains, effectively waking Lindsay with the bright Austin sun. So far so good. Except. _Cucumber. _Sitting right there on the windowsill, erect, staring at him. No exaggeration. Actually staring at him. Little googly eyes are pasted to it and a scowling mouth painted on below them. Plus tiny little dungarees, real tiny dungarees, probably made for a doll, which is somehow more disturbing than if they had simply been painted on or if the thing had just been left naked.  
  
Michael stumbles backwards and takes a moment to digest the scene because it's not just the one cucumber. There are dozens of them littering the front garden. It looks like they're all wearing little pieces of clothing, all sitting up straight. It would have taken Gavin hours to do this, but Michael is almost positive the bird didn't do this alone; he can smell Geoff and Meg all over this – those nocturnal bitches.  
  
That day is full of cucumbers hiding around each corner, in every nook and cranny. He never catches Gavin in the act, but it seems Michael can't turn his back for a second without turning around to a face full of green.  
  
It gets worse. The onslaught of cucumbers in random places never ceases or slows, but the next day, other co-workers have joined in, in a subtler way (Gavin himself doesn't do subtle), wearing _clothing_ featuring images of the nefarious fruit. On Friday, Halloween Eve, Gavin shows up to work dressed as a cucumber.  
  
Then it's the weekend, and Michael expects peace. But he has to spend the day cleaning up the cucumbers that were pegged into their garden on tiny stakes. Each and every single one of them has its own unique face and outfit. Gavin, Geoff, and Meg clearly spent a lot of time on this project. Michael savours throwing each and every one of them into the bin hard enough to make them splatter.  
  
They're all replaced by the following morning.  
  
But surely they must be nearing the end. Gavin doesn't have the stamina to keep anything up for long.  
  
That's when the little fuckers start showing up in the lunches Michael packs himself. It doesn’t seem to matter if Michael keeps his lunch on him at all times, Gavin still manages to sneak it away somehow, when the room is busy. Michael takes to going out for lunch, but Gavin must have paid off every restaurant in an hour's driving distance because they show up there, too - usually sliced, but after a few weeks, he starts getting plates with a whole fucking cucumber just sitting on top of whatever he orders.  
  
Michael isn't even safe in video games because, even once Michael gets past that horrible desktop picture, Gavin downloads and force-runs mods that replace objects with cucumbers. They spend an entire afternoon in GTAV driving cucumbers and shooting each other with cucumbers that fire cucumber ammunition.  
  
His own family betrays him when they're in town for Thanksgiving, and one of his brothers brings a cucumber casserole.  
  
Meanwhile, at work, as the second month of this rolls around, things start disappearing – staplers, family photos, knickknacks, whole computer monitors, Jeremy's desk at one point - and being replaced with Gavin's new favourite fruit. They put up Christmas trees decorated exclusively with the motherfuckers. Fairy lights are strung up in patterns that are reminiscent of the green phalluses. Gavin puts out a menorah with them mounted on it, which Michael thinks is probably offensive, but Gavin insists is inclusive. And Michael will admit (not to Gavin, not yet), it's wearing on him.  
  
In the beginning, Michael hadn't been lying. It was nothing. But now . . . Everything in Michael's life is slowly and not-so-slowly being replaced with cucumbers, and he's becoming a bit paranoid about it. He expects it now, but it's really done his head in. He doesn’t understand the psychology behind it, but he knows it's exhausting, always inching around the corner, expecting to be confronted by a cucumber, constantly wondering what fresh hell Gavin has concocted for him next, seeing no end in sight.__

___  
_ _ _

Those horrid green nightmares haunt his dreams. One night, near the end of December, Michael wakes with a gasp from a dream of Gavin beating him to death with – what else? – a cucumber. Lindsay is still slumbering peacefully. Michael is too unsettled to go back to sleep. So he wanders into the home office and crawls into his box. He had severely underestimated Gavin. This was supposed to be a one-day thing, not a never ending affair. And he misses being friends with the bird; he misses not dreading any interaction with him.  
  
Michael sighs as the truth of that thought sinks in. It's hard to maintain a friendship when every moment he's in the bird's presence is a moment spent wondering what horrible new form of torture Gavin had concocted. Michael laments it until Lindsay rises and tracks him down. He hears the door dragging across the carpet as she pushes it open.  
  
‘Michael?’ she purrs.  
  
‘What?’ he mutters bitterly.  
  
‘What's wrong?’  
  
‘Nothing.’  
  
‘Then why are you sitting in your Gavin box?’  
  
‘I really wish you wouldn't call it that.’  
  
Two tiny ceramic cucumbers swing from her ears as she leans over to peer into the box.  
  
‘Lindsay! Those fucking earrings! What are you doing!?’  
  
‘It's like Walt Disney said, Michael: “Clothe yourself in the carcasses of your enemies”.’  
  
‘So I should skin Gavin and wear him as a meat suit?’  
  
‘Well, if you want to make it erotic. I was talking about cucumbers.’  
  
Michael doesn’t smile.  
  
‘He's going to film with Dan in England tomorrow. Think you can make it through one more day?’  
  
Michael sighs and nods, but he doesn’t think Gavin's absence is going to fix the problem. He could be wrong, though. Maybe the distance will do him some good.  
  
‘Unless you want to skip’, Lindsay suggests, ‘like a little bitch.’  
  
‘No,’ Michael moans. ‘I'll go.’  
  
‘Man, I was kinda looking forward to having the day off.’  
  
‘I mean, I could -’  
  
‘No, no, you take care of things with your boyfriend before he leaves you for a month,’ she says, squinting her eyes playfully. Then she disappears from his line of sight.

  


The day is quiet. Michael is convinced Gavin has something massive planned. They don't interact much because Gavin doesn’t show up to the office until after noon, at which point he prances about, distributing Christmas gifts that are much what one should expect from birds and rodents - shiny but ultimately useless. They range from things nicked from around the office that he has no right to give away (paperclips, keys, a silver plated paper weight, someone's hard drive) to literal pieces of garbage that he really shouldn't give away (primarily aluminium wrappers and some loose staples). Trevor receives exactly one half of a purple Skittle, which he is brave enough to eat. Joel gets the floor lamp from Burnie's office. Michael is given nothing. He doesn’t know if he's grateful or hurt.  
  
Regardless of how he feels about it, he goes most of the day without directly interacting with Gavin. In fact, by the time Michael is ready to leave the office, filming notwithstanding, he hasn’t spoken to Gavin, and Gavin hasn't tried to engage.  
  
Lindsay is in the middle of recording when 5.00 rolls around. Michael goes to wait on the roof, even though it isn't particularly warm, and the sun is setting. Sometimes Michael just has outside moods. It's one of the things Gavin would say proves he's a cat. And it's one of the things Gavin would be right about, though it isn't exclusive to cats; most hybrids have their outside moods.  
  
Michael isn't out there long before he hears the door slam open and Gavin yelling for him. Michael just chatters in a way that makes Gavin squirm.  
  
‘Michael! Come down here!’  
  
Michael prowls toward the edge of the roof and peers over the ledge at Gavin. No cucumbers in sight. That's a surprise, though he is holding a box under one arm; it looks too small lengthwise to contain a cucumber, but maybe he diced it. Michael still shakes his head. ‘Um, how ‘bout no?’  
  
‘Michael, I need you to come down here immediately. It's urgent.’  
  
‘Nope.’  
  
‘Miiiiiiiiichael!’ Gavin whinges.  
  
‘Come up here, if you want.’  
  
Gavin struggles loudly – grunting and grumbling dramatically - onto a skip pushed up against the wall and stops, staring helplessly between the small box in his hand and Michael. ‘Michael!’ he squawks again. ‘I can't!’  
  
‘Sure ya can.’ He'll just have to leave behind that stupid box of sliced cucumbers.  
  
‘No, I can't!’  
  
‘Hey, what do you think other birds would do in your situation?’  
  
‘You know I can't!’ He looks genuinely frustrated, and Michael feels a bit bad.  
  
With a long, overwrought sigh he reaches down to grab Gavin’s free hand and pulls him onto the roof. Gavin smacks the cat in the face with a wing on the way, reminding Michael that he's making a bad decision before he's even finished making it. But Michael makes a lot of bad decisions for Gavin.  
  
‘Hi Michael,’ Gavin warbles as soon as he's sat on the roof beside Michael.  
  
‘Yeah, hi dumbass,’ the cat mutters, eyeing the box under Gavin's arm suspiciously. It's covered in extremely shiny wrapping paper, and Gavin definitely wrapped it himself – either that or he enlisted a toddler to do it for him; it’s all wrinkled and uneven. But it's a lot more effort than he put into wrapping anyone else's ‘gifts’ (he just dropped a pile of Easter grass into Jack's lap and screamed _Merry Christmas_! at him), which only serves to make Michael even more suspicious.  
  
‘I've brought you a present.’ Gavin holds the box out to Michael, and the cat shrinks away. Gavin's face drops a little. ‘What's wrong?’  
  
As if he doesn't know. Gavin plays stupid – he _is_ stupid, but he plays it too – a little too often, in Michael's opinion. Michael wishes he could shrug this off, pretend to be unbothered, take the box, open it, _not_ react to the big, predictable reveal, win this stupid understood competition and return to friendship as usual. But that isn't the way things work for Michael anymore. So he takes a deep breath and mumbles, ‘I don't want it,’ so quietly that Gavin just squints his eyes and looks confused.  
  
‘What?’ the bird asks in his dumbass . . . Well, really, that's just the way his voice is – it isn't nails on a chalk board, but it's definitely grating, like fingertips on a freshly squeegeed windscreen, maybe?  
  
‘I don't want it. I can't do this, Gavin. It's driving me up a fucking wall. I can't eat. I can't work. I can't fucking sleep. I can't look out my goddamned window. My wife – MY WIFE – is . . . I don't . . . I can't even . . . GOD!’ Michael screams. ‘You won, okay!? You fucking won! I'm a cat! That stupid shitty box you got me for Christmas last year is still in my house, and I sit in it when I get overwhelmed! Because I AM A CAT. And so I don't want it! You can go ahead and ram it up your ass!’  
  
Gavin is smiling smugly. ‘Say it, Michael.’  
  
Michael screws up his eyebrows in confusion. ‘What?’  
  
‘Say I'm good at pranks!’  
  
The cat winces. ‘Gavin,’ he whines.  
  
‘I am, Michael!’  
  
He sighs. ‘You were good at _this_ prank,’ he replies at length.  
  
Gavin’s eyes narrow and his feathers puff up in irritation.  
  
‘And maybe I don't wanna be on the receiving end of another one of your pranks!’ adds Michael defensively.  
  
Gavin looks satisfied then pushes the messily wrapped box at Michael’s chest again.  
  
‘If this is a cucumber in a nest of empty Three Musketeers wrappers, I swear to God, I will -’  
  
‘‘S not a cucumber, Michael. I promise.’  
  
Michael picks reluctantly at the corner of the wrapping.  
  
‘But honestly, I didn't think you would break. This was to be my last stand. It's damned exhausting and expensive, and Meg may have promised the manager at one of my favourite restaurants that I would perform some sexual favour for him if he would place a whole cucumber on your plate if you showed up, so I can't ever go back there. And constantly replacing the cucumbers in your garden while you're sleeping is horribly inconvenient. I don't know if you’re aware, but you live sort of far away from me. And really Meg and Geoff aren't being nearly as supportive as they were, which is massively disappointing. So part of it is cucumber-related. But it's not a cucumber.’  
  
‘It really is a cucumber, though, isn't it?’  
  
‘No, well, sort of. I said it wasn’t, didn't I?’  
  
‘Yeah, but you're a mingy bitch, Gav.’  
  
‘Go on.’  
  
Michael glances down at the box then back up into Gavin's offputtingly eager face.  
  
‘Do I have to do it with you watching?’  
  
‘Yes. That's my gift to me.’  
  
‘No TV this year?’  
  
‘I already have a television, you knob. Just open it!’  
  
Michael doesn't like Gavin giving him orders, but he follows them anyway (and it's not like it's ever stopped him before), slowly and carefully until he can see plain cardboard. Next he sees the sterile white of basic A-4 paper under the flaps of the top of the box. The piece of paper is folded into quarters, affixed to a camera, but only the front has anything on it: _To my lovely little boi. Turn me on, you cheeky. P.S.: admin passcode is virginalpickles,_ in Gavin's sloppy scrawl.  
  
‘“Virginal pickles,”’ Michael scoffs.  
  
Gavin shrugs and gestures for Michael to continue.  
  
Michael does, following instructions, this time written, switching the camera on. The viewing screen blinks into life, and he can see there’s already a sizable video file on the memory card.  
  
‘Gavin,’ he balks. ‘Stop.’  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘I didn't want to hear about the thorny strap on, what makes you think I want to watch it?’  
  
‘Stop stalling; I have nowhere to be.’  
  
Michael pathetically whimpers a little and musters up the courage to push play. There's a burst of motion on the screen, until the image settles, and Michael sees himself lounging on the roof. There's a flash of green and a thud, and suddenly a cucumber lies between the camera and the onscreen Michael. Giggle. Silence. Giggle  
  
_Michael!_ Gavin's voice.  
  
_Go away._  
  
_Michael. Michael, look._  
  
Oh god. It's the genesis of this whole mess - the day Gavin began tormenting him, and Gavin caught it on camera. The whole scene pans out. Michael is embarrassed to see he flinched a little initially. But it gets worse. Gavin has documented every moment of it with hidden cameras: the yard, the random encounters at work, the restaurant incidents. Beside him, the bird sniggers along with the events playing out on film. At the outset, it makes Michael irritable, but as the clips carry on, and Gavin begins to feature in the background, he notices a pattern. Every time Gavin is in-frame, he's usually preening, always smiling affectionately at Michael. It's nothing new. Michael has seen in it in most every video he’s watched with Gavin and himself in it. He's just never watched so many clips of it in sequence. It isn't what Gavin wanted the cat to see, but it's what he notices more than anything else, more than the fear on his own face, more than the cucumbers. And it's . . . nice? The cucumbers bothered him - that's as true as anything has ever been; it was _an_ issue, but lately it hasn't been _the_ issue. _The_ issue is their friendship – the fact that Michael can't talk to Gavin anymore, can't hang out with him, can't be near him without questioning the bird's motives, can't relax when he's near. When Michael was thinking clearly, he never truly doubted that this was just a prank taken too far for too long, but there's something inside him, something feline, he supposes, that occasionally led him to at least _wonder._ Sometimes that voice was a little too loud; sometimes it drowned out the more rational ones. It's silent now as he watches the warm smile on his friend’s face in the video. Then the screen goes black.  
  
‘The idea was,’ Gavin starts.  
  
‘You fucking love me,’ interrupts Michael.  
  
‘What?’  
  
‘Look at you. You love me.’  
  
‘Yes, I've told you that. You're my boy,’ Gavin replies dismissively. ‘So I was -’  
  
Michael drowns out the end of Gavin's statement by catching the bird in a headlock. Gavin squawks and beats his wings frantically, but Michael doesn't care. ‘That's a fuckin' nice gift, Gavvy.’  
  
‘The camera?’ Gavin rasps, slapping ineffectively at Michael’s arm. ‘Or the video? Or putting a stop to the cucumber business?’  
  
‘All of it.’  
  
‘You’re takin' the piss.’  
  
‘Nope!’ Michael releases his friend. ‘Completely serious.’  
  
Gavin looks confused, and that's fine. That's perfect actually. He spends so much of his life intentionally confusing other people that he can stand to have a taste of his own medicine. ‘I, uh, I envisioned a bit more yelling when I planned this. I'm sort of unsatisfied, really.’  
  
Michael shrugs.  
  
‘Soooooo, what did you get me?’  
  
Michael places the camera on the roof and raises an eyebrow at his friend. ‘ _Gavin_ ,’ he tuts derisively. ‘What have we just established here?’  
  
‘I, um -’  
  
‘I'm a cat. I've accepted that.’  
  
‘Yeah.’  
  
‘You have pet cats.’  
  
‘Erm.’  
  
‘When's the last time they gave you something that wasn't dead?’  
  
‘They're indoor-cats, so – Oh. You mean to tell me you've got me nothing?’  
  
‘You got it, Gavvy. Now buzz off, and let me sleep.’  
  
‘It's not even -’  
  
Michael leans forward and chatters at Gavin, which makes the bird scramble to his feet and to the roof’s ledge.  
  
‘Merry Christmas. Have a good flight,’ Michael calls after him as he drops down onto the skip below. ‘And Gav?’  
  
Gavin looks up at him. ‘Yes, my boy?’  
  
‘You better watch your ass when you get back because cats may be scared of cucumbers, but birds are scared of fucking everything, and with you gone to England, I'm gonna have, like, forever to plan my revenge.’  
  
Gavin beams. ‘I love you too, Michael. Love you too.’


End file.
